Revision as of 06:15, 8 November 2015

Raj Niwas Marg

Fateh ki Kachori

The Times of India, Oct 31 2015

Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, October 31, 2015

Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, October 31, 2015

Sujith Nair  At Fateh ki Kachori, it's kachori ki fateh

Five decades on, grandsons of a legend continue to sell his savoury pattas to regulars who come for a bite of nostalgia. Self-restraint kicks in only af ter you have downed at least two pattas of Fateh ki Kachori. Set on a black Neelam bicycle parked in a lane next to Raj Niwas Marg, grandsons of the late Fateh Chand don the Pied Piper's role, drawing kids from numerous schools in the neigh bourhood.

Fateh started sell ing kachori-chhole around five decade ago, carrying the delicacies on hi head and hopping from one school gate to another, before settling at the cur rent spot near Shree Delhi Gujarati Samaj. His grandson, 39-year-old Brij Mohan, better know as Toshi, says that a majority of their clients are students or alumni of these schools.

By 11am every day, regulars start trickling in as Toshi and his younger brother Bittu begin an elaborate ritual started by their maternal grandfather.A dozen pattas are laid out on a large plate; then the thin and crispy kachoris are plastered with chhole and placed on the pattas. The combo is topped with a tangy amchoor chutney and sprinkled with homemade masala -a blend of 36 spices and salts that include kaali and peeli mirch, laung, nausadar, kala namak, jeera, ajwain, and badi and chhoti elaichi. This is followed by a splash of meethi chutney and a pinch of salt, topped by a dash of freshly cut ginger, green chilli, dhania and sliced onions. The result: an extraordinary culinary adventure. linary adventure.

Sitting in an autorickshaw which doubles up as a larder, Toshi says it was Fateh's sister who first suggested the mouth-watering pairing of kachori with chhole. Fateh started by selling a patta of two kachoris for 10 paise in the mid-1960s, now it's priced at Rs 25. The cost may have gone up, but the grandsons have maintained the tradition of selling the pattas on a bicycle. A chhole-kulcha roll is the only other fare on offer. In the mid-1970s, Fateh's son, Hari Chand, branched out and started selling kachoris in United School.

Twenty years later, he moved to a spot under a neem tree opposite St.

Xavier's School in the same neigh bourhood. An ailing Hari, 64, says his relatives now sell kachoris at his spot.In his younger days, he also used to sell at Mori Gate in the evenings.

Fateh seemed to have built a legion of loyal clients in his lifetime. As kids, they used to rush to his cycle to grab a patta, and decades later, they keep returning to relive their school days.Among them is Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken, an alumnus of St Xavier's School. Maken says he has been a regular at Fateh's since school and still relishes their kachoris.

Once done with the snacking, you could look around for the guy selling frozen fruit juice bars near one of the school gates. I couldn't resist picking up a strawberry freezer pop, for Rs 10, and then found myself chasing him for another one as he rushed to the next school gate to catch the dispersing kids. Feeling like a kid myself, I joined the stream of students heading towards Kashmere Gate Metro Station for a nostalgia-filled ride back home.

Rajouri Garden

Main market

The Times of India, Aug 02 2015

Nona Walia

The Rajouri Garden main market has got 800 shops -36 selling jewellery, 30 shoes and more than 40 branded wedding wear -this is certainly no “neigh bourhood market“.The Rajouri Garden main market has come a long way from the days when all it offered was daily needs stuff and a basic haircut. Over the past 10 years, this west Delhi market, glamourized in movies like Queen, has become north India's prime wedding shopping destination. And it's not just Punjabi cousins from Ludhiana, Patiala and Amritsar who are crowding its streets -there are plenty ofNRIs too. This is a shaadi shopping paradise with no lean season, says Ramesh Khanna, owner of Sehej Store and president of the Main Market Traders' Association. The market has grown in size -from 214 shops in 1964 to about 800 now. But the more striking change is in the nature of the business run here. Unlike Karol Bagh, which was the original gold and trousseau market of west Delhi but didn't move with the times, Rajouri Garden has drawn big brands like Shakuntalam, Meena Bazaar, Perfection House, Manyavar, Jasmine, Bombay Selections, Appeal, Madame and Provogue.

The market also scores in terms of mood and colour. You can spot brides-to-be accompanied by their friends packing the bylanes while grooms-to-be search for sherwanis.There are mehndiwallahs on the pavement and you can also quickly learn thumka moves for the D Day from an event-organizer-turned dance teacher who has set up shop here. The market's got all bases covered from imitation jewellery to lingerie (the Bangkok variety too). “It's a one-stop shop for all wedding needs,“ says Ajay Sharma, member of the market association who owns around 10 s m a l l shops.

Fo r h e r wedding in October, Jasmine Khurana picked up a beautiful wed ding gown at a designer store that would have cost her “about Rs 1 lakh in South Exten sion but only Rs 50,000 here.“

The South-Ex resident says she decided on the Rajouri Garden mar ket because “there's no other place to shop for your wedding in Delhi. Karol Bagh is too congested and doesn't have designer brands, while in Rajouri Garden there is so much variety that I can shop in one go for myself and my tobe.“ be.“

Nishipal Bhatia, owner of SS Jewellers and SS Diamonds in Rajouri Garden, says fashion-conscious buy ers shop here for not only the discounts but also latest designs.

“People come to us from Punjab because they get only tradi tional stuff in their cities. The brides to-be buy dresses then hop over to other and then hop over to other stores to order jewellery,“ she says.

The market's appeal stretches from Ludhiana to London, says Sushma Gandhi, owner of Sawan Gandhi boutique. “I tell my clients to tell my clients to visit other mar kets first. They go to designer out lets and malls but finally find the best prices, de signs and quality here.“ Half a dozen malls -TDI Mall, TDI Paragon Mall, Shoppers Stop, City Square, West Gate Mall, and Pacific Mall have tried to follow the market's USP but failed. Gurpreet Narula, resident of Janakpuri, says, “People prefer shopping in the main market, not the malls. In fact, my aunts from Toronto shop here for their children's weddings because they get great deals.“

But the market's rapid growth in a residential area has also caused a lot of problems. Bhatia says parking and noise pollution are big problems. Khanna agrees: “The biggest problem is parking as the road is only 50-foot wide.“

Naresh Dhingra, owner of Dhingra Jewellers and a Rajouri Garden resident, says there aren't enough facilities for shoppers. “There are no toilets for women buyers for instance. Also as a resident, I find no peace in the area.“

Ring Railway

Some facts: Ring Railways; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India

The Times of India, Aug 06 2015

Anvit Srivastava

In a city of 2.5 crore, only about 3,700 people use this 40-yearold network in a day . That's the number of people you can easily fit into two six-coach Metro trains. The service certainly looks well past its use-by date, but it had its time once. Long before Delhi got its Metro, Ring Railway served as its first, simple `mass rapid transit system'. When the services started in 1975, diesel engines hauled trains on a 35km single-line route that originated and terminated at Nizamuddin Railway Station. By August 1982, the system had a double line, shortening the travel time with clockwise and anti-clockwise trips, and the engines were electric locos.

That same year, when the Asian Games were held in winter, Ring Railway was a vital transport link to Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium and 24 additional trains were run daily from November 9 to December 3. Officials admit Ring Railway's user base has crashed.In just the past five years, annual ridership has declined by a third, from 20 lakh to 13.5 lakh.But the government isn't planning to throw it a lifeline.

“At present, we don't have any revival plan. The third phase of Metro that will connect Mayur Vihar to Lajpat Nagar and Dhaula Kuan to Rajouri Garden may result in further decline in ridership if proper connectivity is not provided,“ said Arun Arora, DRM Delhi Division, Northern Railways. He added that the railway can be revived only if there's coordination between Metro, the yetto-be-built Rail Rapid Transit System and road transport.

“Access to the existing railway stations of Ring Railway is a problem,“ said Arora. Some of these lie in secluded areas and may not be safe for women at all hours. Stations with good connectivity, like Sarojini Nagar, Lajpat Nagar, Sewa Nagar and Patel Nagar, remain popular while those in Dayabasti, Inderpuri and Kisanganj are crime-prone.